In 1957, John Walvoord (1910-2002), a theologian at Dallas Theological Seminary, authored a book, The Rapture Question, that gave theological support to the pretribulation rapture; this book eventually sold over 65,000 copies.

Belief in the rapture gained popularity in the 1830s, and more recently in the 1970s, with proponents of the first view, i.e., pretribulational premillennialism that was expressed in dispensationalism.

The prewrath rapture view was presented by people such as Robert Van Kampen (1938-1999) and Roy A. Reinhold, but it was popularized with Marvin Rosenthal's 1990 book, The Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church.